He swung his arm again, this time punching past my head, slamming it into a locker and smashing the metal in. “It’s your fucking face. I don’t want to see it.”
With one last scowl, he spun and left. Sisily, smiling like the smug bitch she was, hurried after him. Torin took an extra second, his eyes landing on my exposed breasts and the red lines from the claws.
“Best get yourself cleaned up,” he said shortly.
When they were gone, I sank back against the damaged locker, wincing as I did. My breathing was rapid as I fought for control, and if I had a beast inside me right now, I’d definitely be standing on four legs. Our wolves were a good escape from the pain and fear.
“Come on,” Simone said softly, tugging at my arm. “I have your extra clothes in my locker.”
She kept them because at least once a month, my locker was destroyed by some sort of disgusting prank. Trash, paint bomb, blood, guts, dead animals.
They weren’t creative, but they were consistent.
My head was ringing as I followed her, one hand clutching the front of my shirt to keep it together. As I walked, a familiar feeling filled my body. I thought of it as my brain distancing itself from the carnage of my life. Sometimes, when it got really bad, my vision doubled over as a darkness descended across it. A darkness that called me.
Fractured sanity was my thing these days.
“I have to leave Torma,” I murmured, mostly to myself.
Simone shot me a sympathetic stare, reaching out to grab my hand. She’d heard this from me before, but she didn’t understand how serious I was. I couldn’t do this any longer.
My family line was tainted in Torma.
My legacy, and that of any children I had, all but destroyed.
After decades running with the Torma pack, the Callahan name had been reduced to two shunned wolves: Mera Callahan, an almost-turned shifter, and Lucinda Callahan, a drunken she-wolf who barely remembered she had a family name.
Nothing worth fighting for any longer. Not here at least.
As far as I was concerned, the solstice full moon couldn’t arrive fast enough.
3
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. I was ignored, which allowed me to get to my four classes, hand in all assignments, and even eat lunch in peace. My back and chest stopped hurting after a while, and if it weren’t for the memories of their assault, I’d almost have felt normal.
The violent thoughts tended to linger for longer than the pain.
“You know Victor won’t let you go,” Simone said as we stood outside the school, watching the cars zoom off. The weekly pack meeting was on Mondays, so they’d all be heading out to the alpha’s land soon.
I didn’t bother to answer. It was a circular argument that we’d had many times.
“No one leaves Victor’s pack, Mera! Not permanently. He won’t allow it. I suggest we ask for a vacation away and then just see how long we can take before they order us back.”
I shot her a smile. “He’ll let me go,” I said assuredly, stepping off the path now that the parking lot was clear. Surely, Victor would accept it was better not to have a “tainted” wolf like me in the pack.
“He changed his last name to Wolfe,” she called after me. “He’s an egomaniac who requires control and power over everyone.”
I waved once before setting off, backpack in hand and an ache in my chest. Simone was trying to save me from making a big mistake, I got it, but she hadn’t lived my life.
Sometimes, the harder choice wasn’t really that hard at all.
The heaviness in my body faded as I got closer to the downtown area. I was heading to my afterschool job, the one lifeline I had—and the key to my escape from here.
The town of Torma had about ten thousand shifters, with a bustling main street, where my workplace was located. “Good afternoon, dearie,” Dannie called from the back room as I stepped inside, the bell tinkling above the door.
“Hey, Dan,” I called, dropping my bag in the drawer behind the counter.
Dannie, the wanderer, was a newish recruit into our pack. She’d shown up here ten years ago, just after my father’s murder, and had somehow gotten herself added to our register faster than anyone in pack history. She didn’t have family here, at least none that she admitted to, and was one of the few not to treat me and my mother like lepers.
